


Young and Beautiful

by grarrl



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Depression, M/M, Modern Era, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-18
Updated: 2013-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-01 23:03:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1049618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grarrl/pseuds/grarrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Arthur died, Merlin’s heart broke, as did his control over his magic. He lost the will to live and grew ever more shriveled and bent as his grief took its toll, with no magic left in his heart to fight the tides of time. </p>
<p>Many years later, it is the Once and Future King's time to rise again, and Merlin has to find it in himself to believe the prophecies and bring his King back. But when he does, he realises that he's unable to tell Arthur of his true identity, some sort of cruel self-inflicted punishment by his magic, which he still can't fully control.<br/>And his King is acting oddly, withdrawn and distant, almost as though he's grieving, Arthur doesn't seem to recognise Merlin either, and only ever talks about Gwen and the Knights when he speaks of the past. He never even mentions Merlin's name. Merlin's heart breaks all over again, and his magic slips away drop by drop as he tries to resign himself to loving his King from afar, unrecognized and unappreciated as ever. Yet he can't help staying by Arthur's side, wanting to coax the sadness in his eyes out into the open, so he can know exactly why it is that Arthur looks so devastated...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, Arthur has to see Merlin AS Merlin and realize that it's still him beneath his wizened exterior and love him just the same, which will in turn heal Merlin’s heart and allow him to regain his magic and be young and beautiful again. Whether that happens or not is entirely up to me :D And Arthur and Merlin of course...

_Arthur is dead._

Merlin hadn’t been able to believe it. Not when he’d seen Arthur lying bruised and bloodied on the battlefield, not when he’d dragged Arthur away, not when Arthur had breathed his last words… _Don’t ever change, Merlin…Thank you…_ not even when he’d sent Arthur off into the next world, crowned in glory and wreathed in flames, as befit his lineage. The Royal Crest was, after all, a dragon.

But he could deny it no longer, not now that he wandered the halls of the castle like a ghost, searching for a King whose soul had already departed. Seeing Guinevere sitting, alone and troubled, upon her throne broke something inside him, shattered the veil of denial that he’d been wrapping around his heart. And when it shattered, so did everything else.

He felt it, the moment his mind rebelled, the moment his magic snapped out of his control, eyes burning molten gold as his sorrow tore the sky apart in a lashing storm of wind and water and lightning.

He felt it, too, when his magic leaked away, seeping out of the remains of his broken, useless heart and leaving him forever, taking with it his will to live.

And so he left, left the castle without a word to anyone, not to Guinevere or the Knights, not even to Gaius, the knowledge that Arthur might one day rise again not consolation enough to keep his heart intact. Kilgharrah had spoken at such great length about their destiny together, after all, and look where they’d ended up. Arthur had never ruled over an Albion united as the dragon had promised, had lived only scant minutes knowing the truth about Merlin. So why should he keep faith in this false hope that what the dragon said was true, that Arthur would indeed rise again when Albion needed him most? What about when _Merlin_ needed him most? Was that not enough for him to rise? Or was he still too much of an arrogant _prat_ to fulfill the needs of a simple serving boy, who could no more live without him than he could tear out his own heart?

He had thought that Arthur had changed, that _he_ had changed Arthur, into the man he was always meant to be. But now he saw the truth. Arthur was still just as cruel, just as selfish and inconsiderate as he’d been the first time Merlin had met him. The same clotpole that had sneered at him that day was the very same who had now gone and left him, torn out his heart and stomped all over it and just _left him here._ Alone, with no hope, no promise of a safe return, no dregs of happiness with which to sustain himself, nothing but empty words and the whisper of his last breath. Nothing but the promise of many long and miserable years to come, stretching out before him like the dry, dusty heat of a desert.

He was broken now, and he knew it. Everything was gone and all he had left was this useless body and shattered heart, these fragile things that had failed to earn even the love of the King he had so greatly desired.

And so he lived, like a stone lives, moving when the currents of wind and water, time and fate, pushed him to move, changing only when he was forced to, all the while wearing gradually away, losing pieces of himself to the sands of time, shards of his soul left tangled in the long, endless years of his life.

Without his magic, he aged, grew old and withered and bent, though for all that, it was never enough to kill him. It seemed that somehow, creature of magic that he was, there was still just enough magic in him to keep him alive, and that in itself was the most exquisite of tortures.

For many years, he lived near Lake Avalon, unable to bear parting from the place, unable to let go of the faint echoes of his hope, his belief in Arthur. But as the years wore on and his body aged, he was forced to move closer to the city, watching with dulled curiosity as the great technological race advanced, increasing in pace until one day he found that using a cellphone and surfing the ‘Net came as naturally to him as his magic once had.

They say time heals all things, yet Merlin had seen little evidence of that. Countless years had passed and still his heart ached as though he’d lost Arthur just yesterday, his eyes looking just as haunted and broken as they had back then, though now surrounded by more than a life’s worth of wrinkles.

Well, perhaps if he was being honest with himself, that wasn’t entirely true. He _had_ begun to feel a change in recent years. The aching loss, the sadness, was now becoming something else, more a grey numbness that made it hard to move but easier to live. Recently, he hadn’t been feeling much of anything at all. Maybe he was finally healing.


	2. Chapter 2

Merlin sighed and closed the Google search, another long night passed reading the countless Arthurian legends that had cropped up over the centuries, though none got it quite right. Somehow, over the years, he had changed from being Arthur’s junior to an old, old man while Arthur was just a young boy. His lips curled into a bitter smile, the weight of his years pulling at the corners of his mouth. It made a terrible sort of sense, considering how they had ended up. Arthur, dead and young forever, and Merlin, endlessly alive and old beyond recounting.

And none of the legends ever mentioned the love Merlin felt for Arthur, no tribute was ever given to the aching of his heart, though Merlin knew it was a good thing, a good thing that he’d managed to hide it well enough that not even a whisper remained so many years later.

He stood, bones creaking as he shuffled across his flat and collapsed into bed, though there were few enough hours left before sunrise.

Sleep came slowly, gradually creeping into the corners of his mind and dulling the sharp angles of his thoughts.

With it came Arthur, as ever, young and golden and smiling at Merlin as if he meant the world to him.

Merlin sighed and turned away, knowing it was a dream, only a dream. But this time he heard a voice, a voice he hadn’t heard for nearly as long as Arthur had been dead.

_Merlin…Merlin. Wake up. It is time._

Merlin’s mouth twisted downwards in his sleep. It couldn’t be possible, Kilgharrah had died not long after Arthur had passed, turning to stone as his kind did when they grew too old, the fire of his eyes dimmed and the gold of his scales hardened into cold rock.

And yet there was the dragon’s voice, growing more and more insistent, rumbling in his mind, breaking through his dreams and jolting him into wakefulness.

**_MERLIN! Do not ignore me, young warlock!_ **

Merlin sat up far faster than his aged body could handle, groaning as his muscles twinged.

“K-Kilgharrah? Is that you?” he asked, voice a hoarse whisper in the weak light filtering through his curtains.

 _Astute as ever, I_   _see,_ replied the dragon, sounding amused. _Of course it’s me, who else would it be?_

“Oh, stop with the rhyming. I’ve got a terrible headache and your voice certainly isn’t helping,” snapped Merlin, launching instantly into crotchety old badger mode because, well, he _was_ a crotchety old badger.

“And anyway, didn’t you die? I know you did, I visited your rocky behind plenty of times after Arthur died. You were dead. Why are you bothering me now?” Old bitterness flooded his mouth then and he grimaced. “Come to feed me more of your lies and false hope? Haven’t you done enough?”

 _Oh, Merlin,_ the dragon’s voice was heavy with sadness. _You have suffered much over the years and I am sorry indeed that you had to. But I did not lie when I told you that Arthur would return. Magic is stirring again in Albion and it is time that the world was put to rights. It is why I have awoken. It is why I am coming._

“Well, sorry to disappoint you,” muttered Merlin under his breath as he pulled on a dressing gown and shuffled outside, the air biting coldly at his bare feet, “but my magic certainly isn’t stirring. Haven’t been able to do anything more than talk to birds for a damn long time.”

 _Merlin, this is no time to be wallowing in self-pity._ And there was the old stern-slightly-patronising tone he’d come to know so well during his time in Camelot.

A second later, there came the sound of beating wings and then Kilgharrah was landing in front of him, huge and golden and as alive as he’d ever been.

“You need to harness your magic and awaken the Once and Future King, young warlock,” he said, peering down at Merlin.

Merlin snorted. “I’m hardly young anymore, you great bloody bat! Find someone else to garble your nonsense at, I had quite enough of it years ago!” He turned away, crossing his arms mulishly and accidentally yanking on his beard as he did so. He let out a pained croak, but refused to show the dragon any further sign of weakness.

“The fact that you stepped out of your house to meet me,” said the dragon with infuriating smugness, “tells me you certainly have not had enough. Come now, bring Arthur back and all will be well.”

“Wait a minute,” snapped Merlin, whirling around to glare suspiciously at Kilgharrah. “You told me that Arthur would return when Albion’s need was greatest. It seems to be doing just fine from what I can see.”

“Ah, yes, well,” muttered the dragon, bowing his head and looking away in a manner that could only be described as sheepish. “I may have bent the truth every now and then.”

“Hmph, you’re a liar just as I said.” Merlin crossed his arms again, trying to ignore his aching joints. It really was rather cold out here.

“Be careful, young warlock,” replied Kilgharrah. “I only told you what you needed to hear. Arthur _is_ destined to return when Albion’s need is greatest, that is true, but it also means that he is destined to return when _your_ need is greatest. For you are the very essence of Albion itself. Without you, Albion cannot exist. Without the magic that flows through your veins, Albion cannot flourish.”

“And my need is greatest now?!” Anger coursed through his veins, fury sparking something to life in him that he hadn’t felt in ages. It was pure emotion, unadulterated by the buzzing numbness that had permeated his every waking moment of late. “What about when I mourned over his dead body? When my heart broke and my mind with it? When I lost control of my magic and nearly tore the castle down? Or how about when I lost my magic entirely? My need wasn’t greatest then?!”

“No, young warlock, it wasn’t. For then, you still felt. But you have been giving in to the seduction of emptiness after so many years and have come far too close to losing your magic forever than you realize. There are yet other forces at work in this world, and not all of them are good."


End file.
